Sales Transformation

Collin Mitchell:
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm curious to see what your thoughts are to people who are maybe listening and thinking, how can I sort of take ownership for my career trajectory? What are some things that I can do? Maybe I don't have a college degree and I want to get into leadership. What are a few pieces of advice you have for them?

Leandra Fishman:
I think nowadays, we are all in an entrepreneurial opportunity and mindset. I think back in the day, in the 80s and 90s, there was a little bit more of this ladder that you kind of had to follow. But I think so many great companies and so many great opportunities have come from people just connecting with their passion and their creativity of like wanting to solve problems. And so I would always encourage people, one, to dig in and say like, what are you really passionate about? What really drives you? And then how can you apply that to any aspect of what you're doing? And you might not be in your dream job today, but it's like, how can you use that job as an opportunity to learn, to grow, to push yourself outside of your comfort zone? Because as we know, things that feel uncomfortable are usually the ones that we feel the most reward when we, you know, kind of push through and conquer. And so I've always taken the approach most times I've stepped into something I never felt that I was truly prepared. And so I was always a little bit nervous. And I always would go back to like buying a book or, you know, getting some advice or listening to to nowadays a podcast or a video or something where it's just like you can really kind of anchor into, okay, I want a little bit of information so I can feel confident because I think that confidence really is a big push forward. And then I tell people that want to get into management already act in your mind as if, how do you already help other people? How do you help your peers? How do you give back? So many people can walk by and see a problem and they keep on walking. And I'm always like the creative, you know, kind of excitement about problem solving. When I hear there's problems that I'm left out, I'm like, oh, that was such a good one. So how do we really think about like having that problem solving mindset and then using our creativity to really find new ways to get things done and then continuing to just challenge ourselves to be a little bit uncomfortable, to give back to others and really, you know, push ourselves in ways that we think we can explore new avenues and opportunities. And it doesn't have to be in leadership. I tell people, you know, you can have a great career exploring a lot of different avenues, whether that's going down a product route or a marketing route or, or yes, saying in sales, but really just doing something that you feel passionate about. I think that's the fuel that everyone needs.

Collin Mitchell:
Yeah. Lots of great tips there. So acting as if, you know, looking for those opportunities to serve, um, and then looking for, you know, what's that next level of thing that's going to make me feel uncomfortable and diving into that.

Leandra Fishman:
Absolutely. I always am asking myself in a weird way, like what's the harder thing to do? Because I know that fear has held me back in different aspects of my life, both personally and professionally. And I know when I start to get to an edge where I'm like, Ooh, this feels a little scary. This is going to be hard. Part of me now is like rallies for the challenge of like, Ooh, this is going to be good. There's an opportunity for me to learn, to grow, and that I have trust that everything is happening in my greater purpose of that evolution. Not that it's happening to me in a punitive way, but more it's an opportunity for lesson and growth.

Collin Mitchell:
Yeah. I mean, that requires some level of mindset shift, right? To almost look forward to uncomfortable situations or pushing yourself sort of beyond your comfort zone. Is there anything specifically that you've done to shift that mindset or that you think people can do to welcome those opportunities?

Leandra Fishman:
Yeah. You really have to kind of embrace that uncomfortability and know that there's goodness behind it. Because I think we can tend to be in a situation where we want to just feel safe. And I think from a lot of just my background and my upbringing, you know, I was always looking for stability and security and safety. And so I could always feel in my career when, you know, things like you want to kind of keep it going because it's like, hey, it can't get any better than this. And I think at every step of my career, I was always like, this is good. It can't get any better than this. And I always was like feeling that kind of sense of confidence, at least in knowing my stability, but also wanting to feel like, OK, how can I push myself out a little bit of that comfort zone and do hard things. And I can say, luckily in my career, I've always had a lot of opportunities that have come my way. And I think the opportunity for me has really come much more on a personal side, making hard decisions. I got married really young. I had my kids young. I decided to leave my marriage. That was probably one of the hardest things I've done personally. But I also knew that I wasn't going to be able to continue to thrive and flourish in the way that I wanted to in that kind human experience, if I was going to keep myself in a situation that just wasn't serving me. And so it's like taking some of those big steps and leaps, it's almost like, you know, coming to that place of, you know, kind of self-worth, self-love, self-connection, to know that, like, we are all unique and amazing, and that even though we've had obstacles or challenges, or even though we have hard things, that we can kind of push ourselves through that a little bit, and coming from a place a really desire for, you know, what's in our highest, best interest. That has kind of been the anchor, uh, through my ups and downs that I've really tried to, to use as my North star.

Collin Mitchell:
Yeah. I mean, so a lot of what you're saying here is it's, it's, it's the whole person. It's not the professional and personal is, you know, um, I think the key for a lot of people is integrating that, right. And pushing myself to do uncomfortable things personally is going to help me, you know, lean into it more professionally.

Leandra Fishman:
Absolutely. And I've looked at different times in my career where I could really see like, I had like leaned the other way, you know, really like looking to be like putting so much into my career because there was other aspects of my life that I didn't find as fulfilling. And so really kind of reconcile myself, like, like, why was I doing that? And part of it is just because I had that kind of fear of not being good enough or not being worthy. You know, I wasn't really allowing myself to, you know, kind of take some of those bigger steps and leaps because that was holding me back. And so I think what I've really kind of come to learn and recognize is that we all have, you know, a different path that's unique and we all have amazing strengths. And it's just sometimes, you know, kind of listening to the self-talk that's going on in your head and really knowing that, um, you know, we're all, we're all worthy. We're all amazing. Uh, we just have to override some of those, uh, old patterns, behaviors, or things that, you know, people have put maybe in our space that then we believe to be our truth, which actually are not.

Collin Mitchell:
Yeah. Wow. Well, final question for you before I let you go here. Um, you know, you've now had the CRO title twice. I'm curious for anybody who's an aspiring CRO, what advice do you have for them or anybody who's maybe a new newer CRO?

Leandra Fishman:
Yeah, I think CROs are a really broad range of responsibilities and every company is different. And so some companies have different aspects of support or marketing or, you know, kind of revenue operations and obviously sales is a big piece of it. But I would say really just get curious no matter where you are in your career and learn about every aspect of the customer journey. because it's so important that it's integrated. And I think as a CRO, it's more than just revenue. And I think sometimes people come up with the sales led ladder lens of just like sales is, you know, king or queen of the hill. And the reality is sales is just one aspect of the whole entire customer journey. It's one thing to get a customer. It's a second thing to keep them. And it's not easy to bring them in. But if you can't really think about how you service that customer in a way that is going to help them be successful, you really haven't opened yourself to the whole mindset of just really, again, going back to what's most important for the best customer experience. And so I would encourage people that want to continue their career to really be thinking about understanding every step of the customer journey, understanding all the teams that impact and influence it. I would encourage people to build bridges, not burn them. I've seen so many, you know, different types of organizations where it's just like very siloed or you go in somewhere to a new company and you're like, wow, what happened here? You know, like departments are at ends, but it takes a village and it takes those relationships and those connections cross-functionally. And again, not be us against them. It's about the customer. And we can always bring ourselves back to that being our North star. Everybody wins.

Collin Mitchell:
Wow. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Where is the best place for people to connect with you or find out more about Apollo?

Leandra Fishman:
Yes, they can connect with me on LinkedIn. Leandra Fishman at LinkedIn and Apollo is all over LinkedIn. So hopefully people are connecting with us there, but they can find us and come visit us at Apollo.io.

Collin Mitchell:
Awesome. Thanks so much again. If you enjoyed today's episode, please write us a review, share the show with your friends so we can reach more sellers and sales leaders to transform the way that they sell.